Thumbing Through Firefox Tabs

I started using Firefox when version 1.0 launched, and it quickly became my
favorite browser. There are several reasons for this, but tabbed browsing is
at the top of the list. Other browsers provide tabbed browsing, of course, and soon even Internet Explorer will have the feature. However, you can take advantage
of tabbed browsing in Firefox today and even add extensions, or small add-ons, that provide
a custom tabbed browsing experience.

This article shows the power of tabbed browsing in Firefox that can be had by taking advantage of
the functionality that comes loaded in the browser, as well as through the use of four of my favorite tabbed browsing extensions. I will also walk through two examples, a
news search and a search that led me to the Hitchhiker Adventure Game, to illustrate the advantages of tabbed browsing.

Tabbed Browsing in Firefox

Let's start with a quick introduction to tabbed browsing for those users who
don't already use this feature. Basically, tabbed browsing
lets you open new web pages as tabs inside your browser window rather than opening
a bunch of individual windows. Thus you can view many favorite sites in
one window and even view multiple search results at the same time. While you continue reading one page, you can have multiple links open in tabs in the background.

This ability to load multiple pages inside one window is a slick feature for many
users. Although this article will covers extensions, the tabbed browsing capabilities that
come loaded with Firefox are very powerful. In fact, extensions bring to the surface many options that are
buried inside the program. One important option
that is easily accessible is "Bookmark all tabs in a folder," available
when you add a bookmark in Firefox. With this option checked (see Figure 1), you can
automatically save all of the tabs that are open in the browser window you are viewing.

Figure 1. Save open tabs as a bookmarked group

Later, you can open up all of these pages by selecting the saved bookmark and using
the "Open in tabs" option, or you can just open an individual page from within the list of
saved tabs.

Firefox Extensions

Now that I've touched on the basics of tabbed browsing, let's take a look at
the add-on extensions that can further enhance the tabbed browsing experience.
To quickly access extensions in Firefox, click on Tools -> Extensions in the browser. That is
where all installed extensions are listed. To search for new extensions, click on the
"Get More Extensions" link in the Extensions dialog. This opens the Mozilla.org
extensions page, which offers hundreds of various extensions. To install
extensions from the Mozilla page, find the one you want (user comments
and ratings can be helpful); make sure it is compatible with the version of Firefox you
are running; and select the Install Now link. For more information about installing
extensions in Firefox, check out Firefox Hacks by O'Reilly Media.

Extensions, and in this case tabbed browsing extensions, let you try out all sorts of
features that can save you time and are just cool to use. Here are the four extensions that I use to take advantage of tabbed browsing (see Figure 2):

Tabbrowser Preferences

miniT (drag+indicator)

SessionSaver

All-in-One Gestures

Figure 2. Four of the most useful add-ons

I won't go into too much detail about these extensions, because the Mozilla.org
extension page has plenty of information, and in most cases the extensions' authors also
have sites with further details. If you've browsed the Mozilla.org page (and, of course, some of the other sites offering extensions out
there), you may have
noticed there are a lot of extensions, each with many features to choose from. In this
section I will highlight the main features of my four favorite extensions, focusing on
those most applicable to the two searching scenarios I describe later in this article.

Tabbrowser Preferences

The great thing about this extension is that you can control all of its various options
through the Tabbed Browsing interface (see Figure 3), which is an enhanced version
of the interface that comes with Firefox. Several of my favorite options are:

Loading links in a new tab

Selecting tabs by moving the mouse onto them (instead of clicking on them)

Showing new tab button on the tab bar

Figure 3. Tabbrowser's preferences interface is similar to Firefox's

miniT (drag+indicator)

This extension doesn't come with options and requires no configuring. Once it's installed,
however, you can drag and drop tabs with the help of an indicator anywhere in the browser window. This can be helpful when
cleaning up or sorting through many tabs.

SessionSaver

If you have kids who are old enough to access your computer, or you encounter an unfortunate moment when your machine crashes, SessionSaver pays off in spades.
This extension will restore your browser window exactly as you left it. You can set it
to restore after a crash, or after every startup (see Figure 4). I tend to use "Restore
every startup" when I'm doing a lot of searches, but otherwise I leave it off
because I don't always want my last group of tabs loading every time I fire up the browser.

Figure 4. Restore your tabbed browser window after a crash or upon startup

All-in-One Gestures

This is my favorite extension, because it gives you so many options and ways to
configure the many "gestures" that are available. All-in-One Gestures lets you execute common commands for tabs with your mouse. In essence, you
can hold down your right mouse button and "draw" gestures, or movements, in any tab window that carry out whatever commands you've assigned to the gestures. Notice in Figure 5 how
I've assigned a left and right gesture to the Previous and Next tab function, which lets me quickly move through multiple tabs in the window without having to move
to the top of each tab.

Figure 5. Assign various mouse movements or "gestures" to any tabbed browsing functions you like

You can quickly select a function, hit the "Edit gesture" button, and draw the
gesture you want to assign to the function. This way you don't have to worry
about all of the abbreviations assigned to gestures. Also, if the gesture is already
assigned to another function, you will be given the option to swap the gesture
or draw another one. It's worth spending a little time here and assigning
whatever gestures you are comfortable with (and can easily remember) to your
favorite tabbed browsing functions. Or, if you prefer a more GUI-like approach
to gestures, try out the easyGestures extension. (See the Resources section at the end of
this article.)